October 29, 2013

U.S. Judge Makes Case for Jury Trials

The American jury makes a profound contribution to the very structure and fabric of American law, Ciulla v. Rigny, 89 F. Supp. 2d 97, 98 (D. Mass. 2000), and so it is here. Indeed, this particular case would be of little interest to anyone other than the litigants were it not for the remarkable role of the American jury. According to this federal jury, a broker-dealer who fails to disclose his poor forex trading record to clients, where knowledge of such a record may influence whether they choose to invest in forex with him managing that investment, violates his fiduciary duties and the Exchange Act. Since this jury determined that a broker-dealer who fraudulently has failed to disclose his poor forex trading record has violated the Exchange Act, other broker-dealers should now be on notice that such a failure by them could lead to the same finding. This important jury finding is as much “the law” as it would be were this Court to have made the same finding in a jury-waived case. No longer can the securities industry simply advance the SEC’s equivocation or its own internal procedures as the standard against which its conduct should be measured. Why? An American jury has said so.